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Dir. Charlie Kaufman

Rating: 4.5  |  0 User Reviews  |  Send to Friend

By Jes Sipling

Poetically speaking, a synecdoche is a small part that adequately represents the whole of an idea. Kudos to writer/director Charlie Kaufman for trying to apply this device in his directorial debut, however, along the way, one wishes he might have been clued in to another poetic staple: clear imagery. As it is, his neuron-scrambling self-indulgence feels more like a two-hour seizure than a work of art. Accomplished theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a paranoid, possibly schizophrenic, hypochondriac who has been left by his wife, Adele (Catherine Keener), a praised painter who moves with their daughter, Olive (Sadie Goldstein), to Germany with her questionable best friend Maria (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Epically alone, even Cotard’s therapist (Hope Davis) talks over everything he says, more concerned with plugging her books than offering counsel. Though he still longs for the return of his wife, Cotard finds comfort in Hazel (Samantha Morton), a straightforward receptionist who finds him attractive but far too unstable. Then, along comes a grant that will allow Cotard to salvage his pitiful existence with the creation of something “profoundly true.” After purchasing a warehouse in New York City, he gathers a cast, including the sweet and encouraging Claire (Michelle Williams), who becomes his second wife, and attempts to direct real life in an ever-growing replica of the city outside. Up until this point of the film, Kaufman’s characters are vivid, evoking empathy and interest despite his constant self-referencing and (seemingly) pointless detail quirks -- the therapist’s foot continually swells; Hazel’s house has been on fire for 20 years -- which wear out their welcome almost instantaneously. However, when Cotard decides to put his own life on the sound stage, casting the lurking Sammy (Tom Noonan) to play him (and then another actor to play Sammy, and so on) the camera just can’t zoom out far enough to make sense of how Kaufman ends up melding every character together. Everyone plays each other, everyone begins to look alike and whatever message was supposed to be conveyed gets lost in the telling. Fans of Kaufman may call him an unflinching genius, but it's more than likely they just can’t admit they don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, either.

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